UK govt using immigration as a scapegoat to cover up austerity failures

John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. John is currently working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring.
You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWight1

Romanian children are moved along by their father as he arrives with some of their possessions at the Ozone Leisure Centre in East Belfast (Reuters / Cathal McNaughton) / Reuters

The poisonous climate which currently prevails in Britain on the issue of immigration reflects the extent to which the British government’s extreme austerity agenda has been responsible for a lurch to the right in British politics.

This has been most pronounced within the government itself as,
under pressure from the upsurge in support for the
anti-immigration politics of the far right UK Independence Party,
it has embraced this hitherto marginal political party’s anti-EU
and anti-immigration narrative.

Up to the last UK general election in 2010, which brought into
existence the current Tory and Lib Dem coalition government, UKIP
and its noxious brand of xenophobic and anti-immigrant views were
considered beyond the pale by the political mainstream and the
vast majority of people.

Three years later a recent poll of marginal Conservative
parliamentary constituencies found that UKIP’s support had gone
up by 8 percent since the last general election, while support
for the Tories has plunged by around 10 percent. With the next
general election now only 18 months away, the conclusion is clear
– natural Tory voters have been turning to UKIP in significant
numbers, attracted by their more robust views on the EU and
immigration – both widely though wrongly perceived to constitute
a threat to the British economy, jobs, and a drain on the welfare
state.

Such anti-immigration sentiment has grown in popularity and
traction since 2010, which has been created by the government’s
dogged determination to implement austerity, regardless of the
damage it has done and is doing both to the economy and social
cohesion in the wake of a relentless assault on public spending,
wages, and the welfare state. It has given rise to fear, anger,
and alienation among a large section of the population, making
people more receptive to the scapegoating of immigrants as a
consequence.

Most recently, the rhetoric from the government over the prospect
of hordes of Rumanian and Bulgarian migrants invading the country
after temporary work restrictions were lifted on January 1 in
accordance with EU legislation – an invasion which is yet to
materialize – is a case in point. Citizens of both nations have
been slandered and smeared in a manner that can only be described
as racist, with them characterized as criminals, thieves, and
benefit scroungers. For any politician to descend to this level
is a disgrace. For government ministers to do so is worse. It
even produced a schism within the cabinet, when the Lib Dem
Business Secretary Vince Cable recently compared Prime Minister
David Cameron to Enoch Powell, the notorious Tory MP of the 1960s
whose infamous speech against the flow of migrants to the UK has
gone down in British political history as a racist manifesto.

The truth when it comes to immigration is that it has benefited
Britain. A recent study by academics from University College
London’s Migration Research Unit revealed that over the past
decade migrants have made a net contribution of £25 billion to
the economy, with migrants from the EU making the largest
contribution of all; according to the study they have paid on
average 34 percent more in taxes than they received in benefits
between 2001 and 2011.

One of the co-authors of the report was Professor Christian
Dustmann. On its findings, he told The Guardian: “Our
research shows that in contrast with most other European
countries, the UK attracts highly educated and skilled immigrants
from within the EEA as well as from outside. What’s more,
immigrants who arrived since 2000 have made a very sizeable net
fiscal contribution and therefore helped to reduce the fiscal
burden on UK-born workers.”

He continued: "Our study also suggests that over the last
decade or so the UK has benefitted fiscally from immigrants from
EEA countries, who have put in considerably more in taxes and
contributions than they received in benefits and transfers. Given
this evidence, claims about 'benefit tourism' by EEA immigrants
seem to be disconnected from reality.”

The idea of implementing a 5-year ban on migrants being able to
claim benefits contains its own logic in the context of
austerity, wherein a crisis of greed and recklessness in the
private sector has been turned into a crisis of public spending.
Immigration offers an easy scapegoat for the pain being felt by
millions as a result of the extreme cuts being made to public
spending, with the poor and low waged bearing most of the burden.
However it sets a dangerous precedent, given that around 1.6
million British people are currently living and working
throughout the EU. In other words, the scapegoating of migrants
in Britain could result in the scapegoating of British
expatriates overseas.

But by far the most worrying aspect of the poisonous turn which
the debate on immigration has taken in Britain recently, is that
it illustrates the extent to which mainstream politicians have
failed to learn the lessons of history. During the last great
global depression in the 1930s, the scapegoating of foreigners,
and national, ethnic and religious minorities led inexorably to
the rise of fascism and everything that followed. While we may be
some way from that particular abyss today, the fact that the
normalization of anti-immigrant sentiment in Britain has reached
the point where it has been embraced by the government itself has
to be a matter of deep and growing concern.

At the beginning of 2014 Britain is one of the most unequal
societies in the developed world, with one in three children
living in poverty, millions suffering fuel poverty, and the
number of food banks multiplying up and down the country in
response to growing demand. This state of affairs is not the
fault of immigrants or immigration. This state of affairs is the
fault of the rampant greed that has blighted British society over
the past three decades.

The enemy of people in Britain is neither immigrants or
immigration. It is the rich and a government that governs on
their behalf.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.